India's spin conundrum

Bengaluru: Since his Test debut in 2011, R Ashwin has been integral to India's unprecedented dominance at home. The off-spinner has taken 346 wickets in 57 Tests, averaging six wickets per match and more than three in each of the 111 innings in which he has bowled. However, the spinning behemoth bowled 12 wicketless overs in the first innings of the Visakhapatnam Test against England even as left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav claimed three wickets. Alarming? Certainly not. Concerning? Just maybe. Here is a trivia: Only in five innings before the Visakhapatnam Test had Ashwin gone wicketless on Indian soil. But, as they say, sometimes statistics hide more than they reveal.

In the first of those five instances, England needed just 57 runs to win in the second innings of the 2012 Test in Mumbai. In the second instance, he was outbowled by Ravindra Jadeja, who claimed a seven-for, in the 2016 Test against England in Chennai. Next was against Sri Lanka in the first innings when the pacers did all the damage on a greenish surface. It was no different on the fourth and fifth occasions against South Africa (2019, Ranchi) and Bangladesh (2019, Kolkata) respectively, when fast bowlers claimed the bulk of the wickets.

Yes, Jasprit Bumrah did pick up nine wickets in the second Test of the ongoing series, but that was more to do with the bowler's supreme skills, which take the pitch out of the equation. In a two-Test-old series, England's specialist spinners, with a combined experience of 42 Tests (of which Jack Leach alone has played in 36), have comfortably outbowled the most experienced spin unit in their own conditions. Including the two Tests in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, England's left-arm spinner Tom Heartley (14 wickets), leggie Rehan Ahmed (eight) and offie Shaoib Bashir (four) have played six Tests between them – Hartley and Bashir made their debut this series. Throw in the injured Leach and the more than part-time spin of Joe Root, and England's spinners have 33 (at an average of 33.90 and an economy of 3.48) wickets as opposed to 23 (38.90 and 4.18) by India's fabled tweakers. 

The higher average and economy numbers of the Indian spinners may be attributed to the English batters' care-free methods compared to the home batters' more conservative approach but then, shouldn't the high-risk style have resulted in more wickets? England's aggressive batting entails them to heavily employ unorthodoxy, which is to bring out the sweep and reverse sweep into play. On Indian pitches and against their spinners, this type of batting was a strategy fraught with danger, or so one thought. But the visitors have shown that the most dreaded of spinners can’t be just handled but dominated as well. The aforementioned numbers vouch for this. 

There was a time when visiting batters resorting to sweeping would be derided for it was believed that one turned to the sweep shot only when they were not sure how to handle the turning ball. How times have changed! You can now hear commentators lamenting the Indian batters' reluctance (inability?) to play sweep shots. That's how big the impact of Bazball has been.                     

Talking of batters, the Indians have justifiably copped plenty of flak for their inability to play innings of substance, innings that define matches but in their own den, the spinners have escaped scrutiny thus far. Given the evidence of the two Tests, it looks clear that the Indian spinners weren't prepared enough for the challenge the English batters were going to present with their Bazball approach. Either that, or their execution wasn’t up to scratch. Yes, the series is one-all but never have India looked so vulnerable at home since England beat them 2-1 in the 2012-13 series.

This is not the first time India have lost the series opener before rallying back. They lost to Australia by 333 runs on a rank turner in Pune in the 2017 series before hitting back in style. They suffered a 227-run loss against England in the 2021 series on a perfect Test-match surface that began to turn only from the third day. On both occasions, there was little apprehension and anxiousness in the Indian camp.       

Accustomed to batters who lose half the battle before setting foot in India, Ashwin and company haven't looked half as menacing as they used to be against these free-spirited Englishmen. For the first time in years, a touring team is setting the narrative and the Indian team is being compelled to react. That in itself is an extraordinary turnaround that other touring teams would have surely taken note of.

That said, the surfaces for the first two Tests were much better than what India have been rolling out for nearly a decade. While India are well within their rights to "prepare" pitches that suit their strength, which is spin, do their spinners struggle if they aren't absolute Bunsen burners? Ashwin and Jadeja ran rings around English batters in 2016 when pitches were far from being labelled "dust bowls" but subsequently in the Chennai Test in 2021 and the two games now (without Jadeja in 2021 and now in Visakhapatnam), the Indian spinners haven't looked the same force.

Is it a case of their skills getting lost then? Have Indian spinners forgotten how to be effective on pitches that don't have too many demons in them from the first session? Or is it just the case of the England batters being too good? The jury is still out but the consensus is that rarely have Indian spinners been made to look so human in their backyard.

Former Aussie spinner Stuart MacGill, after a shellacking from Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman in Adelaide in 2003, remarked: “It’s not as if they know what I am bowling, it’s almost as if they don’t really seem to care what I am bowling.”

England’s batters aren't Dravid and Laxman, nor was MacGill in the same league as that of Indian spinners in India, but the messaging isn't lost on anyone.